Sweetness.

Today I kept my eyes peeled for Nils all day long. Either I missed him while I was on lunch... or today was his day off. Either way I was painfully disappointed. I so badly wanted to see him. I'm sure I'll see him tomorrow... right?

I talked to someone who works with Wade today. Asked about him, out of curiosity. Turns out his REAL name is the same as the man who molested me and married my mother. Nice. Wade works MUCH better as a name for him and it's very much what I think of him as. Is it wrong to hold a grudge against a NAME?

Meanwhile, this army guy came in. I didn't pay much attention to him except that as I was ringing him up he was looking at me. Not staring. Just looking a little too long. That sort of thing isn't unheard of so I didn't think anything of it. We started talking about the weather and how early winter set in. I complained that retail is SO very important that regardless of what's going on with the rest of the military on base... I have to come to work. Rarely, if ever, will my work shut down for weather. I explained that I'm a critical member of military society because I work in a store.

He smiled at me, then, as I continued to do my work, "you're critical because you're so pretty." I glanced up at him momentarily, nonplused. I know I stared at him for at least a good second, looking completely wide eyed and confused. I remember staring into his eyes, searching his face momentarily for... for something. And then I said "thank you," recognizing his compliment as being completely genuine.

Later, I had a conversation with a man who works nearby. It ended up being something like a twenty minute conversation relating to a mutual friend. They used to date, apparently, so we talked a little about her and apparently one of the drawbacks to being her boyfriend. Apparently she (like me) thinks of herself as not being very attractive and he (and his friends, he said) find that sort of thing to be very annoying. "Especially in a woman her age." I nodded sagely then added, "you know, I'm not really sure that's an age thing... I think that's just how women ARE...." But you know, maybe I'm wrong. Certainly there's a lesson to take from that.